Category: Trends and Musings

Deciphering Directions and Finding Places from the Past


Last week when I was in Santa Fe, New Mexico and had a dickens of a time locating the Oldest House that I blogged about on Tuesday. According to the map and online guides, the Oldest House was said to be NEXT TO the Church. All I saw next to the Church was a pizza restaurant.

The church was locked so I tried to follow the sign on the government building next door that said “Visitor Info.” The sign had an arrow directing visitors to enter on the east or south entrance. I walked down the street in the direction the sign had pointed. There was no entrance on the street side so I suppose it was the north or west side. I turned at the intersection and again saw no entrance. Okay, I was certain to find the way in when I reached the back. I walked the entire length of the back side and still found no entrance. Turning left, I finally located the door. So what the sign meant was that there was one entrance and it was on the south east side.

I asked the attendant for directions to the Oldest Home. She said, “It’s BETWEEN the church and the restaurant.” I mentioned that a street was between the restaurant and the church. She insisted the home was BETWEEN and told me to look again.

I walked back to the church and again saw the restaurant in front of me as the church sits back from the street. I turned right to walk down the street BETWEEN the restaurant and the church and lo and behold, there was the Oldest House.

If I was to describe where the house was located, I would say it was BEHIND the restaurant and ACROSS the street from the church. This reminds me how careful we must be when we’re reading old deeds.

My people are famous for recording deeds noting boundaries of big rocks and tree stumps. I now wonder how many noted BETWEEN when I would have considered it BEHIND or south and east as southeast?

DNA Has Changed My Habits…and not for the good, I’m afraid!


I just came to the realization that DNA has made me a lazy genealogist. Here’s why…

I have made public several trees that are quite large. The reason for their size is because I once did surname studies – I tried to link all of the Leiningers, Harbaughs, Duers, Kos[s]s, Landfairs and Kuhns in the U.S. from an identified gateway ancestor. I want contact from far flung relatives as I don’t know these folks personally and needing closer relatives input, I made the trees public.

Due to the many places I’ve placed the trees online, their size, and my weekly blog posts, I get over 500 comments weekly. Granted, many are spam, but quite a few are serious inquiries.

Before DNA, I would go to the tree mentioned, search for the name provided in the inquiry, review what citations I had and then respond.

Since DNA, I find myself instead responding with my own query – Have you had your DNA analyzed and if so, what provider did you use and what is your profile name?

Last evening, after sending the same question repeatedly, it hit me that this is a seriously lazy response to well meaning folks who’ve taken the time to contact me.

My intentions were never to be rude but I’m afraid that’s how it’s appearing. I’m not sure how I’d feel if I was the recipient and wasn’t into DNA. I queried colleagues in my local genealogical society and they think my response is acceptable but I’m not so sure. What do you think, readers?! Would you be offended if you emailed someone for more information and received a question in response?

Genealogy Mysteries – The Unclaimed Dead


Anyone who has spent even a short amount of time in genealogy encounters missing ancestor information. Although women are more often found in this category due to changing surnames when they wed or a lack of surviving documents due to limited citizenship rights, men, too, often simply disappear into thin air.

Lately, after seeing the Disney movie, Coco, and spending last month traipsing through the Central American jungles in search of Mayan remains, when I get back to my tree I’m more driven then ever to discover why and where my disappearing family went. That’s my current research focus – I’ve identify 10 individuals with missing death dates/places and I’m on the hunt to narrow down information.

Unfortunately, the missing continues even today. If you’re interested, a volunteer organization of which I’ve blogged about previously, Unclaimed People, assists coroners in reunited the recently deceased with extended family. The organization’s motto, Every Life is Worth Remembering, is powerful.

Recently, I came upon the following article, Trail of Ashes: A Local Man’s Work to Restore Identity to the Unclaimed Dead. It is a must read!

1. Photo by Lori Samuelson, a rural unnamed cemetery in Quintana Roo, Mexico, 15 March 2018.

Brit Speak


My DNA results showed I have much more Brit in me than I ever thought. If you, too, had this finding and were surprised by your results, you might want to have fun with this BBC “quiz” Do You Have a Secret British Accent?
Apparently, mine is East Midlands. I don’t know if that’s because I spent my youth in the northern U.S and the rest of my life in the south resulting in a blended accent. In my travels, people can never identify where I originate. Or, perhaps, I’m harboring deep down ancestral roots from the East Midlands where my family did originate in the Leicester region in the 1600’s.

Blimey, this is ace barmy! (Translation: Wow, this is amazing crazy!) So give it a try.

Marrying Your Half Sibling? It’s Possible in this Brave New World!

Last week, I wrote about MyHeritage’s backing of a study recently published in Science. One of the questionable findings was that the number of cousin marriages decreased after 1875 due to changing societal norms.

After reading the recent article, Sonoma Teen Tyler Sievers Discovers 20 Half Siblings, my first thought was marrying a cousin wasn’t such a bad thing when compared to possibly marrying a half sib (you didn’t know was your half sib). Sure, that’s not what happened to Tyler but the possibility of that occurring is greater today than anytime in the past. Tyler’s (birth) father donated on both the east and west coast. That means, he has a population of children on both sides of the U S and so far, only 20 have been identified. It’s not far fetched to believe that these children could meet and fall in love. Their mom’s selected the father based on information provided that they liked. It’s not a stretch to think that they would have other habits, beliefs, and commonalities in their raising of the resultant offspring. People tend to hang out with those like them and in sharing friends the circles increase. Social media makes it even easier. Online dating even more so. Thus, an increase in half siblings finding each other, marrying and having children is a real possibility

This got me thinking of what the family trees of these children would look like. I scoff when I see a chart that has a family with 20+ children but I guess in the future, there could be fathers who do have great numbers of children.

Perhaps, in the near future, a blood test with DNA analysis will be required before a couple weds.

Shame on You, MyHeritage


Last week I blogged about MyHeritage’s special free offer for assistance to adoptees who are interested in finding their birth families. I was also pleased that in the past few days, MyHeritage announced several other improvements – their DNA Matches are now 1-to-many instead of 1-to-1 enabling more connections and if you are a member of the LDS faith, a new synch with FamilySearch.org. These innovations are positive and important to the genealogy community.

Unfortunately, their latest “scientific” data analysis that was recently published in Science, is hogwash. You can read about it here and here. I have several problems with the study:

“The tree is based on data assembled by roughly 3 million genealogy enthusiasts who have identified the familial relationships of more than 86 million individuals” the key word here being enthusiasts. I’m enthusiastic about many things but that does not make my attempts at the arts, dance, cooking, etc. well done or accurate. Using inaccurate data does not provide an accurate result. If the results of professional genealogists were used I’d be more inclined to believe the findings.

The study’s authors claimed their data was accurate because they cleaned it. “The researchers found that on average there was a 2% error when listing a person’s father, and a 0.3% error for a mother. They also found that about 0.3% of profiles included clear mistakes such as a person having more than two parents, or someone being the parent and offspring of the same person.” Removing the obvious errors does not mean that the resulting information is correct. Did they check to see the validity of the remaining source citations? Actually, were there any source citations? Did they use DNA? No, they did not. After eliminating the obvious mistakes they took the remaining data an analysed it. That is a major mistake. Anyone can place any info online but that does not make it factual; I would think a computer scientist would be aware of that.

The study is clearly biased and Eurocentric. First of all, only users who have placed info on the website are included. The majority of the sites users would most likely be middle to upper class individuals from the U.S. who have access to a computer. Most of those individuals are not people of color and most would have European ancestry. So, duh, they’re going to see this result “By comparing people in the system with 80,000 death records from Vermont spanning from 1985 to 2000, the authors also found that the people included in their family tree were not any more likely to be rich or poor than the general population. They were, however, much more likely to be white.” Did they know that 96.7% of Vermont is white?1 Are they aware that people who inputted the information were probably middle class as Vermont’s sizable middle class population grew rapidly from 1990 to 2010?2 Making conclusions based on faulty data is irrational.

One of their “findings” was that social norms more than increased modes of travel led to Americans marrying unrelated individuals, ie. someone other than a cousin, after 1875. The time period they were exploring was 1825-1875. For 40 of those 50 years, slavery prohibited large numbers of people from using any form of transportation to go a ‘courtin. Native Americans were increasingly subjected to a life on a reservation. The Irish potato famine contributed to large numbers of very poor individuals scraping together the fare for passage and would settle down in the large cities, like Boston and New York, where the ship landed and they stayed until they could earn enough to relocate elsewhere. Only after becoming established in their new homeland did people have the opportunity to move from Chinatown, Little Italy and other ethnic neighborhoods that had provided support to the new immigrant. And let’s not forget the Civil War during this time period. Unfortunately, the authors excluded all of these important influences in their study. The social norms did change by 1875, thus allowing more movement and along with the increased modes of transportation, migrations farther from place of birth to marry did occur. Claiming analysis of their data cobbled from Geni to reach this conclusion is laughable.

I first read of the study on one of my genealogy list servs and then friends and family began to contact me about it. Here’s my analogy of the Geni database. Imagine asking every kindergartner in a private school in the U.S. what their favorite ice cream is. Now take all of their favorite flavors and extrapolate the findings to every other kindergartener – those in public, charter and home schools. Now take it further and apply it to every individual in every state. Without including other groups, you cannot draw a correlation between the private kindergarteners’ results and others. I would say it was simply silly but the scary part is that the study is being given press by legitimate media outlets on both coasts. If the headlines and the story explained that the most novel finding in the study was it is one of the first to explore free crowd sourced provided information I would be okay with it but that is not what the headlines state.

One outcome I am applauding is that I understand some folks are concerned that their data was used in a way they had not intended. INMHO, that is their own fault for not reading the fine print of the Terms of Service. This is the beginning of the use of large crowd sourced data. If you are uncomfortable with your information being used then it’s a wake up call for you to take the time to read the company’s rights without merely clicking the box to accept. Yes, it is boring and time consuming but important.

I am extremely disappointed in MyHeritage. I expected better from an organization that has been making such positive strides.

1 “% Vermont white” abcnews.go.com, accessed: 4 March 2018.
2 “%Vermont middle class” http://publicassets.org, accessed: 4 March 2018.

The Field of DNA Just Lost a Founding Father


If you’ve had the pleasure to swipe or spit to collect your DNA for evaluation, you most likely anxiously awaited the results. Perhaps you were trying to discover your birth parents or you were hoping the findings would put to rest the family tale of someone having an affair and therefore, the rest of that line really wasn’t blood related.

More and more individuals, however, are also using the results to get a better picture of their possible medical issues in the future so they can make positive lifestyle changes now. I never stopped to think about the tireless unnamed individuals who have diligently persevered over the years for us to benefit from their work.

Sure, you’ve heard of Watson and Crick and perhaps unacknowledged, Rosalind Franklin. You might also think about the names of Nobel Prize winners in the field of genetics. There are so many others, though, who made significant contributions and one has just passed.

Dr. Arno Motulsky was a genetic pioneer who died this week at the age of 94. His story is amazing; as a German Jewish child trying to flee the impending Holocaust to his eventual landing in the United States, he pressed onward living a long and productive life.

As someone interested in both family history and the science of DNA, I found his obituary of interest. You can read it here.

Thank you, Dr. Motulsky, and rest in peace.

Genealogy Is Not For The Faint of Heart

Yesterday was our local genealogy group’s Family History Support Day. We had a wonderful turnout – larger than ever! The free event matches people with no genealogy experience with a researcher who can help them get started or provide ideas to overcome a family mystery.
A few of the folks I helped were stunned by the results. The DNA testing companies now include a warning but I’m thinking all genealogists might want to do so. Uncovering family secrets is often hard to deal with.
Here’s the 5 pieces of info I uncovered that I had to share with visitors that left them rattled:

1. Cherokee Princess – Her question – What was the name of my great grandma that was a Cherokee princess? A great uncle told the woman that because they were of Native American royalty, they escaped the Trail of Tears and remained in South Carolina. First problem with the legend is that South Carolina wasn’t one of the 9 states that fell under the Removal Act. Most of that region’s Native Americans relocated to Florida and formed the Seminole Tribe. Second problem is the law didn’t exclude any group so even if she was related to a Native American leader, aka “royalty,’ her family wouldn’t have been permitted to remain. Third problem is the Trail of Tears was in the early 1800’s so the family member involved would have been more generations back then a great grandmother. I identified on her maternal line her great grandparents; they were all born and died in South Carolina and were all identified as Black. I recommended DNA to verify if she has Native American ancestry.
2. Only Child – Her question – “My parents divorced when I was small and my mom and I moved from Florida where I was born to New York where I grew up. I think we stayed with a relative in New York but I was small and don’t remember. How can I find out who we stayed with as my mom is deceased and I’m an only child.” Lucky for the woman, this wasn’t difficult to find as she’s in her 80’s so she was in the 1940 US Federal census. What she initially failed to tell me was that she had changed her birth name under which she was enumerated. I first looked for her in New York but didn’t find her. I then looked for her in Florida but she weren’t there. I then did a search without a location and still couldn’t find her. I then looked using her mother’s name and voila – found them in South Carolina (yes, there was a lot of people from South Carolina and Georgia yesterday which isn’t surprising since that’s all the same temperate zones and farmers migrated between those areas). When I showed her the record I thought that the enumerator had mistakenly put her father’s name as hers; that’s when she told me that was her birth name but she had changed it to a more feminine name. I asked about the 11 month old sibling enumerated after her. She was stunned. The sibling had been named after her grandmother who she thought might be the family member they had been living with. I found the grandmother living in the same district with an uncle and his family. I wasn’t able in the short time period to figure out what happened to her sister. She may have died or is still out there having been adopted. It was hard for her to move forward with her initial question since the discovery was made. I found her mother in the 1930 US Federal census living with a family in Florida. The name was familiar to her; it was her great aunt’s family. The cousin had gotten married and divorced and relocated to New York in 1940. Although she wasn’t living with her on enumeration day, it’s likely that was the New York connection. I recommended she get in touch with the woman’s grandchildren as she and her only son are deceased, to see if they have further information.
3. The Reason Grandpa Left Grandma – Her question – “I’d like to find out why my grandfather took my mom away from my grandmother and gave her to my aunt to raise.” This is a tricky question because a family might not have left guardianship records that could tell us what was happening. The grandmother could have been ill – physically or mentally, incarcerated or dead. I didn’t find a death date so I turned to census records to discover where the family was located. Grandma had been born in 1915 in South Carolina. She had told her daughter she remembered living with her parents until right before she started school. That means, she would have been 5-7 years old. The great grandparents and grandma were not found in the 1920 US Federal census anywhere. That’s explainable as supposedly great grandpa was a traveling salesman. The family probably missed being enumerated in their travels. Their circuit was the entire southeast region. I found that great grandpa died in 1922 in South Carolina. I also found that great grandma had another child but it wasn’t with great grandpa – the father’s name was recorded as “DK” (don’t know). That child died soon after he was born in 1921. Although unconfirmed, it’s likely that the great grandparents split up due to great grandmother’s pregnancy from another man. Great grandpa, in poor health and traveling, placed his daughter with his sister’s family to give her stability. The great grandma died in the 1930’s and had resumed using her maiden name. Everyone from that generation are deceased so the real reason may never be uncovered.
4. Darn Those Genes! – Her question – “I’d like to find out about my dad’s side because my parents were divorced and all I know was that he was mean like his dad.” So the counselor in me kicked in to ask her to elaborate on what she meant by the word, “mean.” She said she didn’t remember him but he supposedly was abusive after drinking which he did all the time. I had just begun to try to identify vitals on her father when her cell rang. It was her son calling and by the time she got it out of her purse, she had missed the call. She became quite upset because her son was incarcerated from selling drugs and they could only speak weekly. I asked her if her son was also an alcoholic but that hadn’t been his drug of choice. She mentioned her daughter and adult grandchildren who had no drug issues. She couldn’t understand her son’s life choices. I recommended that when he’s released, the family get their DNA done and upload it to promethease.com. For $5.00 an analysis, the family will be able to identify their health indicators, addiction being one of them. Although genetics alone does not preclude one to make a life choice, it does explain why some have more difficulty then others. She was very appreciative. She had never thought about her father’s influence continuing in his absence. My new genetic slogan – Gone but not forgotten.
5. That’s Not How You Spell It – Her question – “Should I go to Salt Lake City or a library in Minneapolis to find out who my great grandparents were because I can’t find them online? Someone has my family in their tree online but it’s not my people.” The simple answer is – maybe. This woman had a huge binder full of family info which is awesome but the problem was that it was in no order whatsoever. We wasted a lot of time as she tried to find simple information, such as her parent’s vitals. She guessed her mom died in 2011 but it was 2001. She thought her mom had died in one Florida county but it turned out she was in a neighboring county where she had been taken to a specialized hospital. It took us about an hour to get to her grandparents as she shuffled through her binder and would get sidetracked when she came to a picture. Her question then changed to “How can I identify these people?” My advice to her, which I wrote down, was to first organize the binder by generation. Make it into a timeline beginning with birth and going through death of her parents. Buying dividers that were oversized so that she could label the generations for quick info retrieval. I made by hand, a skeletal pedigree chart and explained how to use a group sheet so she could place the group sheet in the front of each section. She had more info, such as death certificates, in her safety deposit box. I recommended she make a copy and include those, too. She was quite upset about the wrong info online. It turns out it wasn’t wrong. She was adamant the surname spelling ended in “son” but the online tree had “sen.” I told her that spelling was optional prior to the last century. Census records showed that her great grandparents did not read or write. Enumerators wrote names phonetically. So, should she go to Salt Lake or Minneapolis? No need to for an answer to the question she had but of course, if she needs to once she organizes what she has.

In five hours, five ah ha moments that shook folks’ core beliefs. Genealogy is definitely not for the faint of heart.

It’s Family History Month


Since 2001 in the U.S., Congress deemed October as Family History Month. If you’re new to genealogy it’s the perfect time to get acquainted with your local society as many offer free events that will help you get on the fast track. Next Saturday, my county group is hosting a get started event at a mid county library. A neighboring county has provided free scanning of heirloom photos and documents, overcoming brick wall help and youth activities to get the next generation involved. How to find these events? Check your local library and historical museums, the newspaper and Facebook.
If you are a well seasoned genealogist then it’s your turn to step up and assist at one of the offered events. Sharing your expertise, I’ve found, is rewarding on so many levels. You’ve exercised your brain muscles and experienced the joy that comes with helping someone solve a mystery. You may even find a connection to your own family!
If you’re unable to attend an upcoming event, you can celebrate in a variety of ways. This year, by posting my husbands, adult child and my dna on several sites, I’ve connected with many 2nd and 3rd cousins I would never have been able to do locally. In just the past 2 weeks, I’ve had 3 photos of my dad from World War II mailed to me. I’d never seen these photos before and would never have viewed them if I hadn’t posted my dna results. Last October, a family member of my mother’s closest friend found me online and sent me a copy of my wedding announcement. Sure, I had one, but it was special to know that someone besides family had treasured it for over 40 years. Over the summer, a cousin on my husband’s side was preparing to renovate and discovered letters that had been sent to her grandmother that were written by my husband’s grandmother. She mailed them to us. I highly recommend having your dna done and posting it but be forewarned – if you aren’t able to emotionally handle the horror that might result in finding out you aren’t who you thought you were then skip the test! Ironic, isn’t it, that Family History Month starts with warm autumn days and ends with Halloween night.
Another celebration idea is to pull out your old photo albums and using a stickee, tab the pages with 12 of your favorite photos. I’ve used them in a rotating frame in my office as they make me smile and put me in the right mood to research that particular line. If you are a paper calendar type, then use the photos to replace the ones that came with it or have a company make one professionally for you. Sometimes you can get bulk pricing with the extras being given as family gifts for the upcoming holidays.
Last week I wrote about heirloom cookbooks. If you checked any you own, make a dish this month that your family had enjoyed. You’d be surprised how the smell and texture of food can bring back an old memory and just might provide the hint you need to move forward with your research.
Three simple ideas for the three weeks left in this month (where is the time going?!) Enjoy!

Genealogical Gems Hidden In A Cookbook

Do you own a treasured family cookbook? I have several from my maternal grandmother and my mother-in-law. We don’t think of these hand me downs as genealogical gems but they are! Take the time to look through each book carefully. I love the dedication that my mom and aunts wrote to their mom. They always noted the holiday – Mother’s Day, birthday or Christmas – and the year the gift was presented.
A dog eared page or starred recipe tells much about the previous owner’s family, as well. I come from a long line of sweet toothed individuals and the favorite recipes of old confirm my sugar cravings.
Sometimes you might find a letter or note that was used as a bookmark. Family relationships and residential addresses can be gained, along with some family gossip.
If you’ve obtained community cookbooks then you may win the genealogical prize find. This type of cookbook combined submitted recipes from members of a local church or civic organization. Not only will you confirm your family member’s name and group affiliation, you’ll also identify their favorite food. Not sure if you’re family member’s cherished recipes were included? Visit vintagekitchenheave.etsy.com and omnivorebook.com. Look for the time period and location where your ancestor resided. For a low price, you might just discover tasty morsels both edible and historical. Bon Appetit!